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⇑⇓ THE OWNER HIT 14.5 KNOTS ON THE ENSENADA RACE I know Tom Siebel's MOD70 Orion got all the press for shattering the Newport to Ensenada Race record in an incredible time, but there were other Bay Area sailors who did well in the 'Taco Run'. Tim Anto, trimmer, and Andrew Rist, driver, both members of Sequoia YC, sailed on the Jeanneau 54 Avanti. There was a total of eight boats in our division, all of which rated +72. The division included several Schock 35s and the S&S 47 Splendor owned by a guy named Dennis Conner. After getting the door closed on us at the start and having to throw in a turn, we watched as D.C., flying an enormous 'Orion', seen here, wasn't the only 'high genoa, and several of the achiever' during the Ensenada Race. Schocks left us behind in light breeze. But as the wind came up, we got the Jeanneau moving, and slowly clawed our way back into the fleet. One by one we overtook the Schocks, passing the last of them, Uncle Bob, as the chutes started to be hoisted. We finally caught up with and passed D.C. and Splendor around sunset as we both passed the Coronado Islands to port. At that point it was breeze-Marina di Ragusa on with some pretty treacherous and tightly packed swells from aft. We were seeing consistent 10-12 knots of boatspeed, with owner Jim Labarge clocking a 14.5 during one extended surf. We had a couple of round-ups and one round-down, but from conversations in Ensenada after the finish, we seem to have come off reasonably unscathed in this category. A well-timed jibe put us on the layline for Ensenada, and our six knots of boatspeed in the Bahia Todos Santos seemed to be a crawl after the crazy run down the coast. We even had a sail change in the last mile to hold off the Olson 40 Buena Vista that was tracking us down. Once all the math was done, we on Avanti had PHRF G and the City of Ensenada trophy. Ours was the 9th PHRF boat overall, and our time would have won 6 out of the 10 PHRF divisions. The only non-planing boat to beat us was Cheerio II, Dick McNish's gorgeous 1931 wooden yawl. Hats off to him II and his crew. If that weren't enough, we stopped in Avalon on the way home to ride out a gale. It turns out that when the ferries aren't running and the gale has scared everyone else away, Avalon is a lovely, quiet little place. We enjoyed having it to ourselves. It's going to be hard to top this year's N2E. Andrew Rist BigAir, Open 5.70 Redwood City Andrew — Congratulations. D.C. is never going to hear the end of your beating him from us. Terrific report, too. Latitude obviously doesn't have the staff to cover every race, so we encourage anyone with an even remotely significant story to toot their own horn in the pages of Latitude.